Yes, start with evasion clause

No, start without evasion clause

As per this topic. No objections were made so this poll will close at 11:59 PM Pacific Time on October 30th, 2010. If 66.00% or higher vote to have an evasion clause, we will start the fifth generation with evasion clause in effect.

The thought of Chansey, Blissey, Starmie, Clefable, or Drifblim carrying the new, buffed Minimize and running moves like Toxic, Seismic Toss, Wish, Substitute, Stockpile, Baton Pass, Flamethrower for Steel-types immune to Toxic, Psychic for Poison-types immune to Toxic, and maybe Reflect or Light Screen tossed in somewhere all sounds absurd enough that I at least want to see it play out. Bonus points if Unaware Clefable is released since then Swords Dancing and Nasty Plotting up won't beat it. Pretend it's second-gen all over again and stall 'til you fall. And hope the opponent has no Mischievous Heart Pokemon with Taunt since then the whole thing falls apart.

Voted no on the evasion clause. I'm not sure I'm doing my own side any favors by mentioning of the above, but with all the buffs that offense has gotten in the last few generations (since second-gen) in terms of items, moves, and Pokemon themselves, I think it's definitely worth testing. If it turns out to still be difficult to deal with, then that should become obvious and votes can be taken again after that's known, so I don't see why it should be dismissed offhand.

As much as it seems tempting to go with testing it, the thing is; adding another luck factor into competitive battling lowers it's competitive nature. Hax has always been anti-competitive, and with this new factor (that, imo, will be widely used), people may as well quit out of frustration.

Another factor is considering that these tests don't exactly take a few weeks, as it usually ends up being longer than anticipated. In short: time-consuming.

Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against testing this. I just think it'd be rather pointless, especially when factoring other things that are bound to be tested in this time.

Yeah, I was on the edge originally probably leaning towards starting with the clause, but +2 Minimize really convinces me why we need it. The whole strategy would come down to: Minimize once on an opposing mon that can't threaten it, and then pray the switch in misses while you minimize again. That would be incredibly difficult to prepare for or beat, and it's hugely reliant on a random number generator to determine who wins the match. That's just my thoughts.

The outcomes of so many battles are already reliant on the whims of the RNG - just look at all the tournament threads where tons of people have posted saying "lost, had the advantage until I got haxed" or something similar. I don't feel that the arguments being put forth by the pro-Evasion Clause people distinguish evasion boosting sufficiently from other forms of luck-based battling such that it can be realistically said that no testing of these moves is necessary. That is why I voted for starting Generation V without either Evasion Clause or OHKO Clause. If we don't test these strategies, we won't have any idea whether they affect competitive battling significantly more than any other RNG-based factors like damage rolls, secondary effects, and so on.

If Shaymin-S could be banned because of hax alone, I don't see why this should be any different. It takes the skill out of the game and gives control of the outcome to a random number generator. There may be a lot of moves that are preferable to use over Double Team, but evasion boosting by itself is a cheap tactic.

Also, the poll is currently 62% for banning it. That's not going to go over well when we tell everyone "oh we just felt like 66% was a better number, sorry guys"

Evasion Clause has been around for four generations, why is it that having the initial ban needs a super majority rather then the inverse? Why is it the precedent we have had for so long needs a 66% to stay?

Because the initial ban means we dont bother testing. This should only be done if we are certain evasion deserves a ban. If there was certainty about this issue, a supermajority should be reached easily (see the species clause thread for example).

I never said that we "should just ban minimize." That's like saying: Let's ban Draco Meteor because I don't like the move. I rather pointed out that it was more a selling point for evasion clause being implemented.

I agree with Pride about precedence. If it's been deemed important enough to have for 4 Generations of Pokemon, I can't justify in my head why 33% is a large enough number to force it into testing. If anything I would suggest that at least a majority be needed to test it.

Shaymin-S was completely overpowered mainly because of its ability. Otherwise its essentially a little faster and stronger than Shaymin-L but with poor defense and SR weakness. I hardly see it being banned when Air Slash has 30% chance to flinch and Seed flare doesn't drop Sp Def more often than not.

And, battles are reliant on the RNG. That is true, but we've already tried to minimize that through clauses. I don't see why making a match more dependent on luck is a good idea. No matter how good you are, your odds of winning vs. average ladder players goes way down when moves that promote hax to win are used. Good players have proved they are good through constant success despite Crits, paras, etc. I don't think anyone can say that the evasion clause doesn't give good players more ways to lose to people that aren't as good.

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I agree with Pride about precedence. If it's been deemed important enough to have for 4 Generations of Pokemon, I can't justify in my head why 33% is a large enough number to force it into testing. If anything I would suggest that at least a majority be needed to test it.

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For the record, Gen 1 and 2 were vastly different from any battling you know now, and I'm pretty sure evasion there had a much different effect on the metagame than it would now. I can't speak for Gen 3, but I know there was some push to have Evasion tested in Gen 4, but we never got around to it because of time constraints.

Not to mention just cause something was done in the past, doesn't mean it was done right, and you shouldn't hold onto tradition unless you can state why the tradition is in place with a firm and hard reason.

I never said that we "should just ban minimize." That's like saying: Let's ban Draco Meteor because I don't like the move. I rather pointed out that it was more a selling point for evasion clause being implemented.

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I was saying that perhaps we should just ban minimise. If minimise is being used as a selling point for DT being banned, then perhaps it isnt a good idea to go ahead with a straight evasion ban.

And think of this vote as a potential full stop to any testing of evasion. If we pass this, then there will be essentially no consideration of evasion whatsoever in BW at least until every other ruleset decision has been made.

This is why certainty is important. Consider that everyone voting already is aware that evasion has always been banned, and they may have taken that into consideration while casting their votes. It would be silly to then take that into consideration again while counting the votes.

If Shaymin-S could be banned because of hax alone, I don't see why this should be any different. It takes the skill out of the game and gives control of the outcome to a random number generator. There may be a lot of moves that are preferable to use over Double Team, but evasion boosting by itself is a cheap tactic.

Also, the poll is currently 62% for banning it. That's not going to go over well when we tell everyone "oh we just felt like 66% was a better number, sorry guys"

Evasion Clause has been around for four generations, why is it that having the initial ban needs a super majority rather then the inverse? Why is it the precedent we have had for so long needs a 66% to stay?

I never said that we "should just ban minimize." That's like saying: Let's ban Draco Meteor because I don't like the move. I rather pointed out that it was more a selling point for evasion clause being implemented.

I agree with Pride about precedence. If it's been deemed important enough to have for 4 Generations of Pokemon, I can't justify in my head why 33% is a large enough number to force it into testing. If anything I would suggest that at least a majority be needed to test it.

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66% is something, correct me if I'm wrong, we used as a cutoff to ban things in the past. It's a somewhat arbitrary number which is why I asked more than once about using it before the votes started. Now that they have, it would be extremely sketchy to change. If anyone had a problem with it, they should have spoken up about it. I specifically started the last topic after all the new PR members were approved so we'd have as many voices weighing in as possible. I understand you weren't able to jrrrrrrr, but since nobody else opposed, I don't think there's a reason to change what number is required.

As Hipmonlee pointed out, we should only ban things we are absolutely sure are broken. The community seems to be very certain that a metagame without Species or Sleep clause is undesirable to a significant degree. There should be no problem getting a mere 66% support for something that absolutely breaks the game.

We only had the clauses last generation because it was grandfathered in. There was an intention to test them, but we never got around to it due to how long the tiering process took. No ban should be thought of as the default at all times. It's always upon the people who want something removed from the game to explain why it should be removed.

Also, I don't believe the word "cheap" belongs on Smogon. As a competitive community, we should play to win. We don't ban cheap tactics. We ban broken tactics.

Also, I don't believe the word "cheap" belongs on Smogon. As a competitive community, we should play to win. We don't ban cheap tactics. We ban broken tactics.

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Exactly. We should only ban something if it has a significant and harmful effect on the metagame. If we have not even tested the thing in question, we need to be able to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the new rule will bring a significant benefit. This is clearly not the case for evasion or OHKO, and I am fairly surprised by how many people are voting based on unreliable theorymon for it being broken, or a personal distaste for the strategy (or luck dependent strategies in general).

I'm apathetic on Evasion Clause these days. Everything's just so stupidly overpowered that evasion moves are, by default, worse than they used to be. That's true enough for Gen 4 and it sure isn't getting any better with Gen 5. It'd be like if we banned Alakazam in OU. Was awesome in RBY, decent in GSC... and now it just kinda sucks and nobody cares whether it's banned or not, as nobody will use it competitively anyway. Evasion used to be insanely good but now that everything dies in 1-2 hits and move slots are more precious than ever...

On the other hand, it's still super-gay and nobody sane even wants to allow the possibility for it to ruin a competitive match here or there.

Let me know when Garchomp and Salamence get unbanned in Gen 4 so I can tell when we're seriously considering metagame effect rather than preference. Until then, I'll do the same.

I voted yes on evasion clause. Not because of the fact that I've seen how broken it can be after playing a couple of Evasion users on the ladder. Not because of the fact that handing the entire match over to the RNG defeats any purpose in playing competitive pokemon.

I voted yes because I don't honestly believe that anyone can look at Minimize Shanderaa and Minimize Blissey and say "yes, I want to play against that". And that isn't even getting into the Sand Veil users, Inconsistent users and other things that just stack on top of the absurdity.

Just a quick comment: 66.00 percent isn't an actual super-majority. 66.67 percent is. Was that what we were going for?

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I really doubt that .6% is going to matter when the score is 88-45, especially when the OP explicitly says 66%. And an "actual super-majority" is just any arbitrary number over 50%+1, our arbitrary 2/3 cutoff qualifies but so does 66.0%

That's exactly when it would matter, as the vote has a 66.1% majority right now. Votes previously used "2/3 + 1", so if the intent was to continue that practice the percentage points very much do matter, at least until someone else votes yes.

That's exactly when it would matter, as the vote has a 66.1% majority right now. Votes previously used "2/3 + 1", so if the intent was to continue that practice the percentage points very much do matter, at least until someone else votes yes.

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As per this post, we are using 66.00%. Nobody had any objections in the three days between it and this thread being posted.